washing of LR with tapwater

[Oceandeep]

can I wash the LR with tap water?? Purpose to kill all

"killer" inside the rock.

Any1 can help??

[terryansimon]

urh. yah go ahead and do that if you so please...but you end up killing everything beneficial as well. (=

[ashidiq]

hmm u can but u will need a longer time to gain let the good bacterical to colonise the rock but good side is that u will drive all the hitchhiker out... my suggestion is u try add a small amount of hyposaline water then left the rock out on air it will casue then to escappe from the rock.. it is very hard to totally remove all

[marcvelous]

From experience, pretty hard to totally remove all unless you opt to kill the LR.

Good side is no harmful or gross hitchhikers. Bad side is beneficial bacteria killed.

Bacteria will grow back (re-colonise) your dead rock to become LR again with time. So depend on what are your priorities.

I wash my rocks and sun dry them for two weeks to kill everything before using them coz I hate hitch-hikers.

When you see the type and amount of hitch-hikers in your LR, then you know why I do that!

[Oceandeep]

I did on a big piece of LR, and I kill 3 pistol shrimp... WOW!!!!

I just wash with tap water and put in a pail of water......

[eaquarist]

basically, all things beneficial is in the liverock, thats why its so important, so washing it with tap water would kill everything and take months or

years to grow back in a tank.

Or, the best way is to put in a trigger, that would kill all the crabs and stuff

my 2 cents worth..

[xiggie]

then y bother buying liverocks ..... buy dead rock better rite and cheaper....

[Gouldian]

If you are worried about hitch-hikers, what you can do is to leave the LRS in a tub with lights for two weeks and all hitch-hikers will by then starve to death.

But remember to have a skimmer running to skim out the toxics release by the die-offs.

But if you want to be more professional about it. You can install a sprinkler system on a tub with drainage. Put the LR in the tub and the sprinkler will contantly spray pre-mix seawater on the LR while the water will drain off into another tub with a skimmer to be recycled into the sprinkler system again. This is the way to do proper curing of LR. In fact Coral Farm also practice that on their LR - that's why more $$$ .

For me I practice the first method loh and after two weeks in the dark, I find that the bacteria colonies still remains but add the bottom of the tub, I will always find die-offs such as sponges, crabs and algae.

[giantbicycle]

But if you want to be more professional about it. You can install a sprinkler system on a tub with drainage. Put the LR in the tub and the sprinkler will contantly spray pre-mix seawater on the LR while the water will drain off into another tub with a skimmer to be recycled into the sprinkler system again. This is the way to do proper curing of LR. In fact Coral Farm also practice that on their LR - that's why more $$$ .

yar..they use a up pipe to spary up and a huge styarfoam board to sprinkle it...